Cherry blossoms
by Sapphire's Ink
Summary: After waking up from a seven-year-nap, Cerise Holmes is thrown back into detective work in London this time, but with a serious change: her brother forcing her to act like a man because his 'superiors' told her too. Stuck as Sherlock Holmes, she eventually finds John Watson and both move in to 221B baker street. The most perfect sentence for this would have to be 'what the fuck'.
1. First encounters

**Cerise 'Cherry' Scarlett Holmes (also known as Sherlock), the only consulting detective in the world, takes up residence with John H. Watson in 221B Baker street after seven years of being asleep. No one knew of this, however, a government secret, kept secret by her brother, Mycroft Holmes. Now she's being sent back to London to solve crimes and because of her brother she must now act as a man. The most perfect phrase for this is 'What the Fuck'.**

 **Harry Potter verse.**

Cerise Holmes had been undeniably a person of interest for around seven years. She had been kept in an experimental life-support pod made by the government. Bubbles rose steadily from her mouth as her brain continued to ignore the fact that she was dressed in nothing but a sports bra and a pair of skin-hugging shorts to let access to the tubes attached to all major arteries and handcuffs paired with chains keeping the woman suspended in the liquid ironically behaving like a solid.

Cerise had been like this for seven years, all because of the fact that she had retreated to the far parts of her mind palace for reorganisation and retrieval of knowledge. From there, she entered a comatose state and had never awoken. A death-like sleep.

Until July 7 year 2004.

Like any other day, people had mostly been going about their normal activities, such as going to work, talking on the telephone, and even playing games at the arcade. For the government, however, it was a happy day. Earlier that day in the isolation pod, not much was different until Cerise's eyes opened shortly before the glass of that same life-support pod shattered.

Cerise pulled the tubes one by one from her slender form and sighed as she looked down to observe her from. Like always, tiny (almost invisible) scars littered her hands from years of fighting and also from dodging bullets for several years. A guard quickly came down from an observation room and unlocked her handcuffs. Cerise sighed and looked all around her. There were thousands of machines the woman presumed were keeping her alive for quite a while.

'Life support' flashed across her vision in white words as the flat-line tone droned on and on. She sighed and took the guard's gun and his keys and quickly knocked him out with his own gun once he came down.

She took the diamond earrings off his ears and slipped it in her pocket, then did the same with the keys. Cerise opened the door and immediately her eyes fell on a coat hanged up on the side of the place. Cerise slipped it over her slender form and quickly ran out of the hallway.

However, that didn't stop Mycroft from finding her.

Not more than twenty minutes later was Mycroft standing before her with his hands in his pockets wearing a small frown.

"Older brother." Cerise greeted.

"Cerise. Aren't you happy to see me?" Mycroft asked.

"It has been a long time. I almost didn't recognise you." Cerise admitted.

"Seven years, three months, two weeks, five hours, sixteen minutes."

"Why have you been counting, and why so accurate?" Cerise asked, crossing her arms.

"Because I'm very concerned about you." Mycroft vaguely explained. "In either case, you're going back to London posing as my younger brother who is an extraordinary detective."

"You've go the part right about my being your younger sibling and an extraordinary detective, but why on earth would you want me male?" Cerise asked.

"I've no clue. Ask my superiors. In any case, I don't think you should engage in any romantic affairs." Mycroft said.

"In case you don't remember, I'm a virgin. I've no problems denying lust or emotions in general, and I'm frankly insulted you would think I would succumb to such temptations." Cerise crossed her arms. "Why am I to be a man?"

Mycroft sighed. "Again, Cer, I have no idea whatsoever. If you want an answer to that question, ask my superiors."

"And would you stop calling me by that childish nickname? My name is Cerise. If that is truly too hard for you, call me Sherlock." Cerise crossed her arms.

"Nice alias. Sherlock Holmes? Seriously?"

"I'm a fan of the classic detective stories. I do so hope there actually is a villain named Irene Adler, or even better, James Moriarty." Sherlock said, a vein in her temple throbbing from irritation towards her brother (it also made her light on fire but not burn her clothing, which quite effectively dried her off). "Is that all you came for? Because if so, I've got to get to London."

"See you, Cer." Mycroft said, turning around.

Cerise sighed and continued down her path for the exit, though she had absolutely no idea where she was going in the first place.

 **London, England, five years later**

Sherlock Holmes, occasionally known as Cerise or Cherry Holmes, stood in front of a crime scene. She snapped on a pair of white gloves and observed the body in front of her. A man, seventeen years old, dead of Asphyxiation. Upon closer observation, what she was called in for was not suicide but murder. A triple murder now, apparently.

The MO was the same.

'Sherlock' looked around the site where the boy was found and found nothing really all that strange with the gym. The (wo)man's eyes ran over every single detail of the hallway, refusing to let anything escape he(r) sight.

"Can I please have a moment alone with the body?" Sherlock asked the others there. They all looked at her questioningly.

"Why?" Donovan asked.

"Because I need to confirm something." Sherlock responded.

Lestrade led everyone out, leaving Cerise alone with the body.

Cerise danced elegantly in the hallway, music notes leaving her with each step she took. The purpose of this was to reveal anything that had been hidden that even Revelare (unveil) couldn't get out.

Footsteps and a faint thermal signature. Sherlock followed this thermal signature and ran after it as it gradually faded. Oh, she ran. She ran faster than she had ever ran in her entire life. As she ran, the police tried to keep up, but they couldn't.

 **Cerise's POV**

It seemed the murderer go into a car, and even when I forced myself to keep up this pace of running (now on the sidewalk), the thermal signature faded faster than I could keep up with.

I lost the fight to regain my breath and fell down.

When I awoke, I was on a bench in a park. A large man with a red, yellow, and dark green tie sat next to me with a coffee. The man's heat signature was different from the footstep at the crime scene. I groaned when pain shot through my head and winced when the man generously offered me his coffee. I slowly sat up and graciously took the coffee. "What happened?" I asked the man.

"Some bloke with a bike went over your head."

Cerise groaned. "Why didn't he stop?"

"Said 'so sorry', then left a hundred pounds and left." he handed me the blue note. I hesitantly reached for it and took it from him, then slipped it into my coat pocket. I folded my legs and made them into a pretzel of sorts, listening to what he was saying, occasionally making conversation as we talked.

When the topic of houses came up after about an hour of conversation, I scoffed. "My brother occasionally sends me money, but it would be nice to have someone to split the rent with."

"Why don't I find someone for you?" the man asked.

Again, I scoffed, ending with a small chuckle. "Who the hell would want me for a flat mate?" I asked him condescendingly. I picked up the coffee he bought me and went on my way. "However, if you do accomplish such a feat, I'll be in the morgue of St Bartholomew's hospital. If I'm not there ask Molly, the woman in the white coat, where to find me. If she replies 'upstairs', go to the door marked 'Bart's Lab'."

The person I've come to know as 'Mike' nodded, and I left his presence.

After beating a body for around twenty minutes or so, I returned to my lab after Molly offered to get me coffee.

When ten minutes passed, two men entered. After carefully observing the first one through the door, I realised he was a military man.

First clue.

Psychosomatic limp.

Second clue.

= Therapist.

"Mike, can I borrow your phone? There's no signal on mine." I asked.

The first man stuttered. "Uh, you can use mine."

"That's an old friend of mine, John Watson. We were at Barts together."

I lifted my head. "Oh. Thank you." I said, getting up and walking over to him.

Patterns of sunburn.

Third clue.

Rather nice phone but coming to me for a flat share.

Fourth clue.

On the back: Harry Watson, Three kisses, Clara.

Fifth clue.

I took the phone from him and flipped it open. "Afghanistan or Iraq?" I asked the man who just gave me his phone.

It took a second for my question to register for him. "I'm sorry?"

"I said 'Afghanistan or Iraq?'. Which was it?" I said, taking a break from staring at the illuminated screen to look at the man.

He stared at me. "Afghanistan. How did you..." he looked back at Mike. "Did you tell him about me?" he asked. Mike shook his head. The man then looked back at me. "How did you know about that?"

"Ah, Molly, coffee." I mentally scanned her again and immediately noticed she no longer wore the earlier shade of light pink. "What happened to the lipstick?"

"It wasn't working for me." Molly replied.

"Oh, really? I thought it was a big improvement. Your mouth's too... Small now." I said, walking back over to my experiments.

"Okay." Came Molly's meek and timid voice. She left soon after.

I took a sip from the coffee with a grimace and set it down. "How do you feel about the violin?" I asked John.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"I play the violin when I'm thinking, and sometimes I don't talk for days on end. Does that bother you?" I asked, turning my head over to him. "I believe potential flat mates should know the worst about each other." I smiled.

"Who said anything about flat mates?"

"I did." I replied, walking over to him once again, but this time swerving away from him entirely and getting the black coat I took from the hanger that day I woke up. "Told Mike just this morning that I must be a difficult man to find a flat mate for. Now here he is, just after having lunch with an old friend, obviously who had just come come from military service in Afghanistan. Wasn't a difficult leap." I said after putting on my dark purple scarf.

"How did you know about Afghanistan?" John asked me.

I ignored his question. "I've got my eye on a nice little place in central London. Together, we should be able to afford it. We'll meet there, Sunday morning, 7:00. Sorry, I've got to dash. I think I've left my riding crop in the mortuary."

John, obviously overwhelmed by the speed of my words, turned around to look at me as I was leaving the room. "Is that it?"

I let go of the door and turned back around to face him, letting the door fall back in its frame. "Is that what?" I asked him.

"Well, we just met, and we're already going to look at a flat?" John asked.

If only he knew my actual gender.

Instead of voicing this for fear of Mycroft stop sending me money, I looked around the room, then back at him. "Problem?" I asked, genuinely curious.

"We don't know a thing about each other. I don't know where we're meeting, and I don't even know your name."

I nodded my head, only slightly. "I know you're a retired army doctor and you've been invalided home from Afghanistan. I know you're go a brother who's worried about you but you won't go to him for help because you don't approve of him, possibly because he's an alcoholic... More likely because he recently walked out on his wife, and I know that your psychiatrist thinks your limp is psychosomatic, quite correctly, I'm afraid. That's enough to be going on with, don't you think?" I started walking towards the door again when his words returned to me and I realised I hadn't told him much about me at all except for the fact that I play the violin. "My name is Sherlock Holmes, and the address is 221B Baker street." I winked at him, then left after saying goodbye to Mike, leaving a dumbstruck man with a phone that speaks volumes about his brother and another man who teaches at Barts smiling. Faintly, I could hear Mike's voice saying 'And yes, he's always like that'.

I went to 221B and shook hands with Mrs. Hudson, the landlady for the previously mentioned apartment.

I stayed there for around three days before doing another one of my experiments again, which meant I had to go out for more human limbs or vital organs. While I was out, I also picked up several cartons of milk, french vanilla coffee, several kinds of tea, enough nicotine patches to last a month, and tons of microwave dinners. I returned home with full knowledge that Mycroft is watching me. I turned my face to the nearest security camera and snarled for around thirty seconds before sticking my tongue out at the metal object and continuing on my path towards my house.

I slammed the groceries on the table and slammed the door to my room. A full three days without a good case. I sighed and rested my head in the palms of my hands. I quickly shed my clothing and threw on a sports bra to replace the tight bandages hiding my rather large chest size paired with a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt.

Quickly enough (or not quickly at all depending upon who you ask), I fell asleep under the warm and fluffy sole blanket on the still bare mattress. The bags under my eyes gradually became less and less dark as I slept. However, the clattering of objects awoke me. Making sure my bra was well hidden and tight enough to hide the fact I am in fact female, I opened the door of my room with dead eyes and a cold expression.

However, this quickly faded when I caught sight of John staring at me. "Sherlock." Came his shocked voice.

"I know, I know. Quite... dishevelled." I said, entering the living area.

"It's just-"

"That you never expected me to wear anything other than dark clothing, you believed I was a vampire, you believed I don't actually sleep, and you believed I looked you up on the internet the day we met, but it would be extremely hypocritical for you to make such a claim as you looked me up on the internet the night we met." I cut him off. "I'll admit to two of those claims being true, but I'll say this right now before you start guessing: I didn't know anything about you before you came to the science lab with Mike."

John looked confused. I chuckled. "Yes, that is the expression most wear when I tell them that." I shrugged. John was here for about three days trying to guess which one, either vampire or psychopath with a severe case of insomnia, but he couldn't reach such a conclusion as both seemed likely.

In the end, when Lestrade came with a good case for me, I was sitting on the couch with my legs crossed and an insane look in my eyes.

So, Lestrade was most certainly put on edge when I jumped up and looked at him. "Leslie, do you have a case for me? Please do you have a case for me?" I suddenly scoffed, muting whatever he was going to say when he opened his eyes. "Who am I kidding? Of course you have a new case for me. You wouldn't be here if you didn't have a new case for me." I paced in front of the coffee table. "What is it? What do we have? What's different?" I asked, my eyes wild and my hands fidgeting.

"There's been a fourth, and this one left a note." Lestrade informed me. "Are you coming?"

"Not with you. I'll be following short behind you with John. He wants to examine the body because Anderson's on forensics and he won't work with me. He wants to see more danger. I know that." I said, looking at the ex-military man.

John looked flabbergasted. "Yeah, how did you know?"

"It's all over your facial expression." I waved it off. "We'll take a taxi, now get out my flat, Leslie."

Leslie's face got really mad, but he did comply and leave. Once he was down the hall, I literally jumped with joy, then took John by the forearm and dragged him outside after taking my coat.

"Taxi!" I yelled once outside. John followed me into the cab and, halfway there we started talking. He asked questions and I answered them, then explained how I knew about Harry and about John's military service.

We stopped off at the crime scene where I did cause Donovan and Anderson some embarrassment by revealing to the entirety of the people there that the two previously mentioned slept with each other despite Anderson being married.

I quickly inspected the body lying down face down on the floor, likely because of the note. At first glance, it said 'Rache', the German word meaning 'Revenge'. However, there were faint marks on the floor after the last 'e' that seemed to be a lower-case 'L'.

Rachel.

Faint splash marks off a suitcase, small, on her legs. Indicated she was only planning to stay away from her home for one night.

Her coat was slightly damp, as was the inside of the collar of said coat. In her pocket was an umbrella, dry. She was in heavy rain and strong winds, too strong to use her umbrella.

There were no indications that she had arrived at a hotel or anything like that.

I stood.

"Got anything?" Leslie asked.

I snapped one of my gloves off. "Not much."

"We know she's German." came Anderson's smug voice. "Rache. It's the German word for revenge. It could be she's trying to tell us-" I slammed the door in his face.

"Yes, thank you for your input." I said, taking the other glove off.

"So, she's German, then?" Leslie said.

"No, she isn't." I said, then proceeded to explain why she actually lives in Cardiff.

John exclaimed that those deductions were magnificent, to which I was slightly embarrassed.

I quickly ran out of there when Leslie told me they didn't find a suitcase.

"Suitcase! Did anyone find a suitcase?!" I yelled, my feet thumping down the stairs.

"There was never any case!" Leslie screamed back.

"Of course there was!" I retorted.

"Then why wasn't it here?" John asked.

"Because it's murder. All of them. I don't know how, but it's all murder. The murderer forgot he had the suitcase-"

"Wait, wait, wait. Murder?" Leslie asked.

"Of course! Where's her mobile phone? Where's her overnight bag? Why did she kill herself if she still has Rachel?" I asked rhetorically. "For the love of interesting cases, Anderson, don't answer that. Find out who Rachel is!" I screamed, running out the door.

Pink. Pink. Pink. Pink. Pink.

I hopped in a cab and went for five minutes before stopping. I dug through all the trash. Nothing. So, I continued on and dug through trash five minutes from the original murder spot. Nothing turned up.

Once more, I went five minutes from the original crime scene and dug through the surrounding trash. I found the pink suitcase, called a cab, and brought it home.

After putting on gloves and digging through the contents of the case for around thirty minutes and realising she had no phone with her, I looked at the tag on her suitcase's handle. There was a phone number over the email address.

I wrote down the telephone number on a piece of paper and left it on my desk. I then got three nicotine patches and lay down on the couch and entered a meditative state. I thought for around twenty minutes on how to catch the killer before realising the best way to get the killer was to text the killer and get him to come to a specific place.

I couldn't use my own phone. Too risky. Might be recognised. I yelled for Mrs Hudson, but after five minutes of her not coming up, I texted John for him to come home.

'If convenient, please come back here. SH.' I texted, then sent.

After about a minute, I texted him again. 'If inconvenient, come anyways. SH.', then another one three minutes later saying 'Could be dangerous. SH.'

I dropped the glamours and the metamorph spell and sat up, then held my head in my right hand with a sigh. Wavy raven locks fell past my shoulders, my facial features softened and my frame became more feminine altogether. My eyes turned a light shade of yellowish turquoise and my skin became, if possible, even paler. I ran a hand through my hair and relaxed as the nicotine patches did their work. The multiple purple bruises inflicted on me from the war against Voldemort had long faded with time, but not the feeling of those bruises themselves. I seriously considered going to a doctor to look at the still visible scars inflicted with the broken bones. I reactivated the spells and glamours and lay back down on the couch, unclasping the buttons on my sleeve hiding the three nicotine patches.

I closed my eyes and set my folded hands over my heart, touching my middle finger to the underside of my neck.

"John." I greeted him.

"Hello, Sherlock." he said back, then sighed and plopped down in his chair. His posture told me something was bothering him.

"What's wrong?" I asked, turning my head only slightly.

"Well-" he glanced at my arm. "Is that three nicotine patches?"

"It's a three-patch problem." I said. "You were saying?"

"I met your enemy." John said.

A shiver ran down my back from the bitterness and coldness of his words. I turned to him, ignoring the goosebumps littering my arms. It was clear something upset him. "Oh. Which one?" I asked, trying to extract more details from him.

"He said he was your arch-enemy. Do people have arch-enemies?" he asked.

I turned my head again. Archenemy? That sounded far too much like Mycroft. "Did he offer you money to spy on me?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Did you take it?" I asked, not moving.

"No."

"Pity." I said. "We could've split it. Think it through next time."

"Who is he?" John asked, curiosity flooding his voice.

"The most dangerous man you've ever met, and not my problem right now. Please, could you send a text for me?"

"You... You called me here to send a text?" he asked me.

"Yes. I can't use my phone, there's always a chance my number will be recognised. It's on my website."

"I was halfway across London!"

"There was no rush." I said calmly.

John sighed. "What's the number?"

"It's on my desk." I said. "Are you entering it?"

"Yes."

Despite the faint tapping, I asked another question. "Did you enter it?"

"Ye- Hang on a second!" John exclaimed, then continued typing in the pink lady's number. He then stared in shock at the ID for the person's phone he was to send the text for me to. "Jennifer Wilson? Wasn't that the dead pink lady?"

"Yes, that's not important. Now, type these words exactly: What happened at Lauriston Gardens? I must have blacked out. 22 Northumberland street. Please come."

"You blacked out?" John asked me.

"What? No, no!" I said, walking over the coffee table. "Type and send it, quickly." I said, going over to a far corner of the living area and bringing out a pink suitcase. I lay it on the coffee table in front of my arm chair, the opened it.

John lay down the phone on my desk and looked back at me. "Sherlock?"

"This is Jennifer Wilson's case. Now, can you see what's missing here?" John didn't answer. "Her mobile phone. Where's her mobile phone? We know she had one. You just texted it. So, the killer must have it." John's phone buzzed and lit up as he received a call. "If someone regular saw that case, they wouldn't think anything of it, but the killer-" I snapped the case shut. "would panic."

I threw on my coat on and took my scarf off the door. "Have you talked to the police?" came John's question.

"Four people are dead. There isn't time to talk to the police." I said.

"Then why are you talking to me?"

"Mrs Hudson took my skull." I explained, looking back over to the mantle.

"So, I'm basically filling in for your skull?"

"Relax, you're doing fine." I said. "Well?"

"Well what?"

"Are you coming?" I asked, then looked back at him. "Is there something bothering you?"

"Yeah. Sergeant Donovan."

I mentally sighed. "What about her?"

"She said you get off on this. You enjoy it."

"And I said 'danger', and here you are." I said, leaving.

John came after me soon after that. We walked most of the way to Northumberland street, then went to a restaurant in that area.

Angelo greeted us and offered us food for free because I made him go to prison instead of getting hanged. "This is Angelo. Three years ago, there was a particularly vicious triple murder and he was the main suspect until I proved he was actually guilty of a house-breaking at the same time exactly across town."

"I'll get a candle for the table. Make things more romantic." Angelo smiled.

"I'm not his date!" John exclaimed again. However, thirty seconds later, Angelo came back with a lit candle and set it in the middle of the table, then walked away.

I stayed staring out the window for any sign of the psycho killer, ignoring the warmth in my chest that was likely sprung on by the heater lying right next to the wall by the window.

"There he is." I said, staring out the window, making John turn to look at the stopped cab. "Don't stare." I said, when John's gaze didn't move from the car.

"You're staring." John argued.

"We can't both be staring, and I'm the one with the photographic memory." I argued back. I discreetly took a picture of the car with my phone just before it sped off.

I ran out the door and to the cab, but a car almost ran me over. However, I jumped over it, saying 'sorry' when I was on the other side of the street.

"I've got the number." John said.

"Good." I replied.

For the next fifteen minutes, we proceeded to run after a cab along the route I presumed it was taking. We corrected courses around twice and eventually, I threw myself in front of the car and it stopped.

"Police!" I screamed, holding out Lestrade's deputy chief inspector badge. "Open 'er up!"

In an attempt to catch my breath, my breathing patterns were loud and hefty. However, when I looked in the back, I sighed. I deduced in about ten second he was a tourist and that he just arrived from the airport. We left soon after that and ran back home to 221B Baker street.

We talked for a little while there about many things until I declared to my landlady that John would be taking the room next to mine.

"Now, who says I'll be taking that room?"

"The man at the door." I said, still trying to catch my breath from the earlier race.

Angelo was revealed to be standing outside, handing John his cane.

Mrs Watson came into where we were standing with a frightened expression. "Sherlock," she said. "What did you do?"

"Mrs Hudson?" I asked, having finally regained my breath.

"Upstairs in your flat." she answered. I ran up there with as much speed as I was able considering my lack of energy to find Lestrade sitting in my chair.

"What the hell are you doing, breaking into my flat like this?" I asked the smug man with grey hair.

"I didn't break into your flat." Lestrade answered.

"Then what the hell do you call this?" I asked, fury lacing my face and taking a defensive stance and fire clearly behind my eyes.

Lestrade looked around him like he didn't know what the heck I was talking about. "It's a drugs bust."

"You've got to be kidding! This guy, a junkie? Have you met him?!" John exclaimed from behind me. "I'm pretty sure you could search this flat all day and you wouldn't find anything you'd be able to call 'recreational'."

"John, you might want to shut up right about now." I said.

"Yeah, but still." he said, then looked at my facial expression for a good six seconds before he realised they were right. "No." he said. "Seriously?"

"Shut up." I said, then turned back to Lestrade. "I'm not your sniffer dog."

"I know. Anderson's my sniffer dog."

"Wha-" I turned to the kitchen where he was gesturing. "Anderson, what are you doing here on a drugs bust?"

"Oh, I volunteered." he said.

"They all did." Lestrade told me. "They're not strictly speaking on the drug squad, but they're very keen."

"Are these human eyes?" Donovan asked.

I pointed at her. "Put those back!" I exclaimed.

"They were in the microwave!" she protested.

"It's an experiment." I explained.

"Keep looking, guys!" Lestrade called out.

My head started thumping. Or maybe that was everyone's combined footsteps?

"This is childish." I told Lestrade.

"And I'm dealing with a child. Look, this is our case, we let you in, but you do not go off on your own. Clear?"

"Oh, so, so, you set up a pretend drugs bust just to bully me?" I asked viciously.

"Won't be pretend if we find anything." Lestrade retorted.

"I am clean!" I enunciated, a small bit of my real voice slipping past the charms.

"Is your flat?" came Anderson's snarky retort.

"I don't even smoke." I said, pulling up one sleeve to show Lestrade one nicotine patch over my wrist.

"Neither do I." Lestrade said, pulling up his own sleeve to show me an identical patch. I sighed and turned. "We found Rachel." he told me.

That made me turn around. "Why didn't you say that in the first place? Who is she?"

"Jennifer Wilson's daughter."

"I need to speak with her. She might know something about this!"

"She's dead." Lestrade told me.

"Great! Is there a pattern between the other murders?" I asked.

"Never mind that, we found the case." came Anderson's shrill voice. "According to someone, the murderer has the case, and we've just found it in the hands of our favourite psychopath."

"I'm not a psychopath, I'm a high-functioning sociopath. Do your research." I turned back to Lestrade. for an answer. "Well?"

"I doubt there's a connection since she's been dead for fourteen years. Technically, she was never alive. Rachel was Jennifer Wilson's stillborn daughter."

I became confused. "No... No, that's... Why would she do that? Why?"

"Why would she think of her daughter in her last moments? Yeah, sociopath. I'm seeing it now." Anderson said, his voice dripping with venom.

I turned around to face him. "She didn't think about her daughter. She _scratched_ her name into the _floorboards_ with her _fingernails_. She was dying. It took effort. It would have _hurt_." I said, then turned back to Lestrade.

The thumping in my head got louder and more painful. Why am I getting a headache?

Oh, right. Thoughts.

Unfortunately, the Holmes family speciality is Ligillimancy just as much the Weasley family gift is bravery and a good sense of right and wrong, or the Princes' potions prowess, or the Peverells' creativity and resourcefulness or the Flamels' alchemy abilities. That means I could use the mind-reading spell without even wanting to, and also why I can access my own mind palace so easily, not to mention the fact that I can hear everything people are thinking.

Most of the echoing voices are overlapping over each other, but some of the more clear things said 'Body parts', 'Nicotine patches. No, keep searching', and 'drugs drugs drugs drugs keep looking'.

The voices pounded in my head until I was pacing over the living room carpet.

"SHUT UP! EVERYONE SHUT UP! DON'T MOVE, DON'T THINK, DON'T SPEAK, AND DON'T BREATHE!" I yelled over everyone's voices. While I tried to calm my pounding head, something kept bothering me. "Anderson, turn the other way. You're putting me off." I said keeping one hand on my head and the other extended towards him in an effort to make him turn around.

"What?" he asked, his thought process going a thousand miles an hour, which made my headache exponentially worse. "My face is?" he asked furiously.

I groaned until finally I had to prevent my animagus form of a rare form of phoenix from coming out and poisoning him. My eyes flashed yellow and I could feel the venom starting to coat my fangs and my nails.

Lestrade, one of the only ones who knew of the fact I could turn into an animal, ordered Anderson to turn around and so he eventually complied.

"Jennifer Wilson has a smart phone. It's email enabled. The killer has the phone, which means..." I laughed, my headache having finally stopped pounding. "Oh, that's smart. Rachel is the password to her email. She wants us to track her phone to lead us to the killer. On her suitcase is the username for her email, the one connected with her phone. She's actually smart. Don't you get it? She's smarter than all of you combined and she's _dead_." I quickly typed in the email username, then the pass-code.

"It-it's here." John said in shock, looking over my shoulder. "It's right here, in 221B baker street."

"It can't be here physically. Mrs Hudson would have alerted either myself or John if she had found a phone with a pink case." I said.

"Sherlock, there's a cab waiting for you right outside." Mrs Hudson told me.

I almost immediately made the connection. "I-I need some air. There's too many people here." I said going downstairs to meet the taxi cab driver.

"Taxi for Sherlock Holmes." said the cabbie.

"I didn't order a taxi."

"I know."

I hesitantly walked closer to him. "You're the killer."

"Yeah. I'll say this, too: I swear if you call the coppers right now, I won't run. I'll let them take me in and let them hang me. But you're not going to do that."

"Why won't I?" I asked the man.

"Because you want to know how I did it." he said arrogantly. "You want to know how I killed them. See, I talked to them, and they killed themselves. You want to know how and why I did it."

He had me there. I was far too curious to call the cops on him. So, that's why I got in the cab with him to where he was taking me.

Around thirty minutes later, we arrived.

Two minutes after that, there was the two bottles fiasco. One contained a bad pill. I had to take one to survive. So, the other one would most certainly cause death.

I took one bottle off the table and popped off its cap. Faintly, I could hear his thoughts of 'He took the right bottle', and another thought pattern sounding like John's, screeching 'SHERLOCK'.

Just before he was going to pop it into his mouth, a gunshot ran tough the air, echoing and shattering the window behind me. It made me drop the pill.

"Your sponsor. Who is it?" I asked, stepping over his wound, making pain shoot through his left shoulder. He cried out in pain. "The name?" When he didn't respond, I applied more force. "THE NAME?"

He cried out. "Moriarty!" he screamed out in pain, with his last breaths.

My eyes widened and he died.

Ten minutes later, after taking off an orange blanket twenty times, the very same was thrown onto me again, followed my a pat on the shoulders.

Lestrade, walking over to me, sighed.

"This... Blanket. Why do they keep putting this blanket on me?"

"Yeah, it's for shock." he responded.

"I'm not in shock!" I retorted.

"Yeah, but some of the guys want to take photographs."

I already knew full well wh the shooter was based on the fact that I knew John would find me in time and by the things I picked up at the crime scene.

I got off the steps of the vehicle and started walking away. "Where are you going?" Came Lestrade's question.

"I just need to talk to my flatmate about the rent."

"Sherlock-"

"Oh, what now?" I asked. "I'm in shock. Look, I've got a blanket."

"Sh-"

"And I've just caught you a serial killer... More or less."

Lestrade huffed. "Alright. Go home."

I walked away and over to John after taking off the blanket and throwing into an open window on a police car.

"Sergeant Donovan has just been explaining everything to me. Two pills? Bloody awful business, isn't it?" John commented, his face stone hard, obviously trying not to let anything slip past his defences.

Too late.

"Good shot." I complimented him.

John tsked. "Yes, yes, must have been *cleared his throat* through that window."

"Well, you'd know. You need to get the powder burns out from underneath your fingernails. I don't suppose you'll serve time for this, but let's avoid the court case. Are you alright?" I asked my new friend.

John cleared his throat once more. "Fine."

"Well, you have just killed a man."

"Not a very good one." he pointed out, to which I laughed.

"A bloody awful cabbie, too. You should've seen the route he took us to get here." I said, making both of us laugh.

"No, no, we can't laugh. It's a crime scene!" John pointed out.

"You're the one who made it a crime scene."

"Not so loud!"

"Sorry."

"I think it's just nerves."

However, in the distance lay Mycroft, the flashing red and blue lights bouncing off his pale skin. "That-that's the man who told me he was your arch-enemy."

"I know exactly who that is." It wasn't a lie, either. Mycroft hadn't changed must appearance-wise in the past year, which was the last time we had met (unfortunately, Christmas exists).

"What are you doing here?" I asked my brother once me was in hearing range.

"As ever, I'm concerned about you."

"Yes, I've been hearing about your 'concern'."

"Oh, so aggressive. Did it ever occur to you that you and I belong on the same side?"

"Oddly enough, no."

"We have more in common than you'd like to believe. This petty feud between us is simply childish. People will suffer and you know how it always upset mummy."

" _I_ upset her?" I asked, venom lacing my words. "Me? It wasn't _me_ that upset her, _Mycroft_."

"Wh-what are you two talking about? Who's 'mummy'?" John asked.

"Mother." I clarified. "Our mother. This is my brother, Mycroft." I turned back to me **beloved** brother. "Putting on weight again?"

"Losing it, actually." he responded.

"He's your brother?" came John's incredulous question.

"Of course he's my brother. Can't you see the resemblance?"

"So he's not-"

"Not what?"

"Oh, I dunno. A criminal mastermind?"

"Close enough."

"For Christ's sake, I occupy a minor position in the British government!" Mycroft exclaimed.

"He is the British government," I assured John, "When he's not too busy being the British secret service or the CIA on a freelance basis." I turned back to Mycroft. "Good evening, brother mine. Try not to start a war before I get home, you know what it does for the traffic."

With that, I turned and walked away, dragging John by the wrist with me for about fifteen seconds, then let go after being assured he would follow me. So, we returned home and John went to sleep while I meditated for half the night and explored my mind palace for the other half. However, once that was done, I was already impatiently waiting for the next relatively hard case, or a case at all.

When's the next case? I want the next case. When's the next case? I WANT THE NEXT CASE AND I WANT IT NOW!

 **I'll admit this isn't my best piece of work. But bear with me. This is my first crossover story in a while that actually makes sense (sort of). Also my first Sherlock Holmes fanfiction. I'm new to the series and probably won't update for a while. I'll also make a chapter for the 'in between' parts of the cases because according to the series' seasons, there are only around three major cases each year (or around that many).**

 **Eventually, I will put down other chapters until I decide to finish it. Eventually, I might shoot the story from John's and Mycroft perspectives.**

 **Please review. Tell me how I can improve. Seriously. Also, before you comment, _listen_ to the  April fool's cover of Amalee for courage and _seriously think about the lyrics_.**

 **Good night.**


	2. The unfortunate boredom (for John)

In the morning, I was always just as restless as when I fell asleep. John kept blogging about me and I wrote a story about magic that turned into a story about Hogwarts which turned into a story about what really happened between the four founders and how long Slytherin actually left the school for.

The routine was actually really monotonous, and only by the time I started running out of ideas that fit in with historical accuracy before declaring with a loud voice about my boredom.

"It's been a whole two months now, John! Two months without a flipping good, hard case! How are you not bored too?" I asked pacing around the living room.

"Sherlock, you're starting to wear a hole in the floor." John said, not looking up from the newspaper in his hand, or putting down his cup of chamomile tea with milk.

"It's been months since an interesting case, John!" I enunciated.

"Yes, you've only said so seventy-nine times." he said, taking a sip from his tea.

I groaned and plopped down in my chair, now sulking. "Why can't an interesting case come?"

"I'm sure one will come soon." John said monotonously.

"You've said that fifty times." I replied.

John finally slammed his cup down and set his newspaper down on the coffee table. "There are plenty of cases. Why won't you take one of those?"

"Because they're not interesting. Not worthy of my time." I replied, taking out a nicotine patch and fastening it to my wrist, allowing it to pilfer my blood stream. Almost immediately, I calmed down with the accompanied wave of euphoria, and was able to have a restful sleep (which no doubt made John wonder how I was able to sleep so quickly after being so agitated despite the fact that the nicotine patch calmed me down significantly).

I awoke with my legs draped over John's lap and my body on the arm of the chair holding us both and my glamours dropped. I yawned and got off John. The loss of heat from being there for rather a long time woke John up.

"Where's Sherlock?"

I looked down and saw that the glamours had completely been dropped. I scratched the back of my head. "I'm so sorry. Did Sherlock not mention me? My name is Cerise." I said. It wasn't exactly a lie. I never did tell anyone about the fact that I'm female aside from the people who already knew.

"How do you know Sherlock?" he asked.

"We're very close." I said. "I am actually shocked Sherlock didn't tell you about me."

"What do you mean by that?" John asked.

"Sherlock, despite being an asshole, is actually very open-minded and nice." I responded. "Now, I really must leave to find Sherlock. He left in the middle of the night to go somewhere, and I still haven't seen any sign of him." I said, looking around and going out the door. I duplicated myself and my double entered the room carrying a human brain suspended in preservation fluid in a glass jar, then set it on the kitchen table. He then saw me.

"Cerise? What are you doing here?" fake Sherlock asked me.

"I wanted to check up on you. I haven't seen you in ages." I said, crossing my arms. I then looked around. "Really, I expected better from you. This dump?" I asked sarcastically. "I'm joking. I see you've found yourself a good companion. Really, if you were that desperate for a flat share, you didn't need to ask someone else. I'm always available." I said, turning back to him.

"Cerise, we both know your brother sends you just enough for a flat every month."

"You're in the same situation, if I recall correctly. We could have pooled our earnings." I reasoned.

"Yes, but where would be the fun in that?" phantom Sherlock asked, slipping his hands into his pockets.

"Are you two related?" John asked, apparently confused regarding the nature of our relationship.

"More like... Ex-spouses." Sherlock said, then his eyes softened when he turned to me. "Cerise, where have you been? I haven't seen you since-"

"Since your mother said some things about my infertility and I had to divorce you to get out of the huge load of stress that came with being your wife?" I asked in a monotonous voice.

"I was going to say last Christmas. John does not need to know so much about me."

"Shit, I actually forgot about that." I said, snapping my fingers and resting my hands on my hips.

Copy-Sherlock took his hands out of his pockets. "Nicotine patch?"

"Please." I said, then left phantom Sherlock to get the nicotine patches.

"So, how did you find Sherlock here?" John asked once he had left.

"I asked Mycroft." I said.

"So you're still on speaking terms?" he asked.

"You don't need to know so much about _me_ , either." I said turning back to him with a frown.

"Now I can see why you and Sherlock get along so well." John said. At this point, my stunt double came back with the one nicotine patch. I fastened it to my wrist and let the chemicals do their work, then sighed when I realised I needed to leave.

"Well, I should get going." I said, walking towards the door, then kissing Sherlock on the cheek. "Don't think I don't think I don't still love you." I said, playing up the role we used to be married. Phantom Sherlock smiled and hugged me.

"Goodbye." he told me. I smiled and ruffled his hair, then left, leaving a smiling 'me' behind. I disillusioned myself and stayed in a closet and sent another copy of my real form out and walked away until 'she' couldn't be seen anymore, then dissapeared when she turned the corner.

I mind-melded with the Sherlock upstairs, so I could hear, see, and affect everything 'he' was saying and thinking.

"-Seriously had a wife?" John asked, his eyes wide.

"Yes. Is it really that hard to believe?" I asked, slightly offended.

John gave a small chuckle and ran a hand through his hair. "I honestly don't know. For all I know, 'Cerise' is an actor you hired to throw me off your scent. Believe it or not, my instincts are telling me that's the female version of you." John said, pointing out the still open door.

...

Well, he wasn't __that__ far off.

"Honestly. _Why_ do you think we got along so well?" I asked, plopping down in my arm chair, lazily flicking one leg over the other and resting my forehead in my open hand, the other resting on the arm of said chair.

John scoffed, crossed his arms, and turned his face, then back at me. "Why didn't you tell me you used to be married?"

"Because it wasn't important." I responded. "Furthermore, I most certainly didn't expect Cerise to show up here without my previous knowledge!" That part was true. Usually, the wards and the charms stay up when I'm sleeping unless I take them off before sleeping. Maybe it was the nicotine patch?

"You've got a point there." John admitted.

"Now, in return, tell me something about you. Something you wouldn't share with any old flatmate."

John's chest puffed out and he bitterly chuckled. "Why? It seems to me you know more about me than you should." John said.

"You and I both know you don't really feel that way. You're just mad because I knew several personal things about you within the first five minutes we met." I responded. "I'm not joking. You know about my ex-wife, now tell me about an old skeleton in your closet." I said, uncrossing my legs and carelessly flicking the opposite legs over the other, then crossing my fingers together. "I'm ready. Whenever you are." I said.

John sighed. "You're not going to let this go, are you?"

"No way." I said.

He exhaled slowly. "My middle name is Hamish."

I smiled brightly. "Thank you. Now, was that really so hard?"

"Shut it." John replied simply, glaring.

"Alright. I'll drop it." I replied, getting up from the chair. "I seriously need another nicotine patch."

"Go get your stupid patch." John said, waving me off.

One I had closed the door, I apparated back to my room and spelled him away, then fastened another nicotine patch to my arm and sighed when a wave of euphoria came over me.

I exited the room. "Are there any cases?" I asked my companion.

John sighed. "For the hundredth time, no!" John cried. "How about we play a game?" he suggested.

"Anything to relieve the boredom." I replied.

So, for the next three hours, we played hundreds of games of scat. I will admit to cheating. I could see his cards on the window and I always knew when to knock."

When John took his last turn, I sighed. "Best eighty-seven out of one-hundred sixty?"

John sighed and put away the deck. "No way."

"I am sorry. However, it's like you're stacking the deck, and it's strange how I always end up with three queens every time without fail."

John sighed and shuffled the cards. "If we're playing again and I win, then you have to declare me the winner." John replied, setting the pack in front of me. "Cut." he said. As per request, I took the deck of cards in half and then took a large chunk out of the middle and set it on the top, then half of that pile and put it on the bottom.

Next, John dealt the cards and I ended up with a queen, an ace, and a jack, all in the same suit. I actually gaped at this cards selection. "How?" I asked.

John looked up from his cards: three kings. "How what?" he asked, resisting the urge to smirk.

"I already have thirty-one!" I said, showing him the cards.

"You're sure you're not stacking the deck?" John asked.

"I assure you, the cards are sufficiently randomised. I must reiterate the question if _you're_ stacking the deck." I retorted. John picked his deck of cards off the table.

"Of course not." he replied, now on his way back to his room. "Anything else you want to play? Battleship? Life? Cluedo?" he asked.

"What's Cluedo?" I asked.

"A detective game for small children."

"Cluedo it is." I decided. John nodded and got the game. Three seconds after setting it up, I set my brain to work at hyper-speed. "The victim did it. It's the only possible explanation. The victim did it. It's the victim."

"Okay, that's enough of that game." John decided, then put the game back in his room. He stepped only a foot out to look at me and sighed. "Sherlock, it's almost three in the morning. I'm exhausted. I'm going to bed." John informed me.

My eyes drooped and I felt beneath my eyelids to find them curved inwards, the skin there soft. I yawned and went back to sleep.

 **One month later**

I paced around the room. John was gone to do work for a hospital I knew from several past cases that he wouldn't keep for long. However, with only the near-deaf Mrs Hudson in the house with me, things soon got _very_ boring.

Yes, I even tried playing cards by myself, but that got boring rather easily.

I paced around the room, listening to the clacking footsteps and neighbouring thoughts with my unusual heightened sense of hearing that was normally dulled by the nicotine patches. I had to take a break from the nicotine patches. They were messing with my system. This might account for the fact that I haven't been able to sleep for a while, and for the fact that I haven't had a case in a while. I sat down in my armchair and tucked my feet beneath my butt, refusing to set down my legs. I crossed my arms as I continued on with my story with the modified version of history.

However, my head snapped up when the door slammed shut.

The pattern of footsteps indicated John was home.

He sighed once the door was opened, and immediately massaged the back of his neck to try and work out the knots once he sat down in his favourite chair.

I continued working on the story, actively doing my best to ignore him. However, because of the unfortunate thing called Ligillimancy, my mind melded with his and I could feel the same tenseness in my own shoulder. I got up and sighed. "I'm going to my room, John. Take care of your shoulder." I said, then entered the plain room. About the only thing with colour in that room to the untrained eye was the periodic table picture in the far corner.

Thankfully, the throbbing in my shoulder was quickly replaced with a pounding in my head. I went over to my sock drawer and took out one pill of Ibuprofen, then popped it in and went to sleep. I had stayed up for several nights trying to find something to occupy my racing mind.

Oh, how it hurt having nothing to do. Everything seemed too dull to occupy my 10,000-mile-an-hour brain.

I disengaged the charms and ran my fingers through my long silky locks. For once, I concentrated on my emotions.

Sadness. The one word I associated with Redbeard, my old childhood dog. He was shot in his stomach, and then he was hit by an armoured car. My only friend as a child.

Happiness. When I thought on this, happiness seemed to be almost constant since John found out about Cerise my 'ex-wife', especially when he started asking about 'her'.

Anger. One word associated with frustration, which I immediately connected to Mycroft, Donovan, and Anderson. Another group of words that flashed across my vision was 'incessant chatter', which easily I associated with Mrs Hudson, John, and Anderson. Annoyance was floating around there somewhere too.

Hatred. The root of this was easy to find, and 'Freak' was one of the things most connected with it. Another on this list would have to be 'constant underestimation' and also 'threats'. Wait, scratch threats off that list, they were fun and often lead to cases of aggravated assault which sometimes lead to murder. Those were fun.

There was of course more beneath the surface from years of neglect, hatred, fear, and disgust being pushed down that led to my covering up autism with a high IQ level and keen observation skills with being a high-functioning sociopath, but it seemed to amount to basically that.

I sighed and fell back on my pillow, then sighed. After staring at the ceiling through the moon's soft light drifting through the curtains, my eyelids grew heavy and I fell asleep against my will. Also against my will was how long I slept: about 23 hours (my body had to compensate for the missed sleep).

To my dismay, I found that someone had come to me with a case when I was asleep.


	3. Sparks

**Rather short, in my opinion. Don't kill me if you want the next chapter.**

I grumbled as I contemplated my position in this.

I, Cerise Holmes, top student of the Ravenclaws, Quidditch captain of my house (with special permission because of my sensitivity to sunlight. I was basically the team's tactician), one of Dumbledore's personal favourites of my year (excepting Harry Potter, whom I had briefly dated on rainy days, during the night, and at Hogwarts), am currently being made to act male because of my brother's stupid superiors.

Even now, after five years of keeping up the facade, I want to rip my freakin' hair out. How are people so ignorant that they can't even figure out I'm female? Seriously now, all the signs are there: my sensitivity to other people's feelings (that I mask through my cold hard exterior), my extreme irritability for one week of every month (I hide that rather well, too, in retrospect), my sensitivity (sort of) towards other people's opinions of me (excepting of course my clients, children, Donovan, and Anderson).

...

Okay, I'll admit I hide the fact I'm female well, or relatively well. It still doesn't excuse their lack of perception, though!

I sat poring over the Chinese figures after returning from the museum where Soo Lin Yao was murdered. Over two numbers sat a word, which meant every pair signified a word.

All over the crime scene, I remember seeing the book A-Z London. I darted over to the bookshelf and picked out said book, then pored over it.

"Page fifteen, entry one." I muttered. The entry said 'Deadman'.

The paintings did foretell death after all.

I quickly flipped through the pages and wrote down the rest of the sentence.

"Nine mill fore jade pin. Dragon den black..." I paused. "Tramway." John turned to me.

"What was that?" he asked me.

"Nine mill fore jade pin dragon den black tramway. The tramway is where they've taken her and the jade pin is what they're after, and we need to get there in less than a half hour, or your date's probably going to be dead soon."

John jumped up and quickly threw on his coat while I did the same with mine, then fastened my scarf around my neck and hurried out the door.

When we arrived, Shan was holding a handgun to John's date's head.

"That gun is designed to shoot a bullet designed to travel 100 meters. This tunnel is four meters by ten meters, which means it would ricochet. It could hit anyone, even you." I told Shan. John hurried behind me.

There was a small fight, which ended when I turned the automated crossbow on Shan. It shot her through the heart and dug itself into the wall. Shan's people brought her out of the tunnel, angered for the fact that their pseudo-leader was murdered. I scoffed at the mere thought. Whoever this 'Moriarty' is, he's the leader of every single criminal out there higher than a pickpocket. After all, he's _sponsoring_ a _serial murderer_ and giving money to the man's children _because_ he _kills_.

Now, there are some things I've deduced about John, too. In addition to my having the homeless network, he or she has a network of his or her own. Perhaps one I don't have access to? But then how did he acquire access to something myself or Mycroft couldn't?

I sighed when the whole ordeal was over. John eventually got in contact with Lestrade, who came as quickly as he could. Of course, the Chinese mercenaries were long gone.

Now, two hours later, I'm still extremely displeased with these developments. We should have caught more of Moriarty's henchmen to see what was happening, not sat back in fear of a simple handgun wielded by inexperienced fighters compared to my level of experience, especially since I could easily take them down with a flick of the wrist from years of nonverbal, non-wand spell-casting paired with using magic in the DADA classes with Harry in the fifth year, which was especially practical because it was Delores Umbridge our opposite defence professor.

I lay down on my bed watching the thirteen zodiac signs float above my head in a circular pattern. The charms were down and I lay in my female form. I sighed. I hated my long list of the allergies, sensitivities, and intolerance's I had developed over the years and got teased for constantly while at school. Frankly, I didn't really care now save for the way people called me a vampire or a freak. After all, sunlight (sensitivity), garlic (allergy), and holy water (intolerance) aren't necessarily normal sensitivities and allergies, especially the sunlight thing.

Of course, the list went on. Cocoa (allergy), coconut (sensitivity), kiwis (allergy), bananas (intolerance), butter (sensitivity), idiocy (sensitivity), etc, etc.

I got up and got dressed for bed (basically the same as my normal clothes), the set myself underneath the fluffy warm covers. After my hair shrunk back to its normal length, I barely got a glimpse of someone with a wand standing over me and putting the sleep spell over me. The next thing I knew, I was in the hospital in immense pain, being treated for an insane amount of poisons.


	4. Guns, bombs, poison, consulting criminal

I sighed and tried to lift my arm to soothe the oncoming headache from the ever-constant shouting from the doctors treating me.

"Book an OR. We need to remove his kidney, his stomach, his liver-" The woman furiously scribbled on a chart.

"I don't need my internal organs removed, idiot." I cut off the woman.

"I'll let that slide because you're delirious. You've been poisoned, and that poison is going to kill you soon unless we get these organs removed." The woman declared.

"Let the poisons kill me, then. I want it clear I did this of my own volition." I said, neglecting to mention the fact that my body has an unnaturally high tolerance to poison. "If you'd be so kind as to discharge me?" I asked, getting up from the bed. I carefully removed the IV, the medications, and the life-support monitor.

"Sir, please."

With the last of the tubes pulled out, I walked away from my now abandoned bed, groaning each time my aching feet came into contact with the cool stone floor. I stretched and turned away to reclaim my things. "I don't need to be hospitalised, and I most certainly, above everything else, _don't need anyone's help_." I said, not bothering to spare a glance back at the now gaping woman. I groaned as I stepped through the open double-doors. "Oh, and there's been an explosion near a college. More than two hundred people are injured, at least one quarter of those people quite severely. You might want to prepare your hospital to the best of your ability." I suggested, now going out of the building.

"Taxi!" I called, going to the location of the explosion until another bomb went off, announced on the miniature TV screen in the front.

Located in Baker street.

Adrenaline raced through my mind as I called the taxi driver away in the opposite direction.

I threw a fifty of the front seat then left the taxi to stare at the charred and half-destroyed street.

"No..." I gasped running into 221B.

It was relatively unharmed. Only the grand piano and the ukulele in the corner were completely beyond repair, aside from a lamp I really hated, so it wasn't that much of a loss.

My eyes ran over every inch of the room. Charred debris lay everywhere. Of particular note, my laptop was completely destroyed, my skull had an insane amount of dust in it, and John's chair was a shade darker.

Thankfully, only one or two of my experiments out of twenty were completely destroyed.

However, what bothered me most of all was my older brother sitting in the middle of the room. "Mycroft. So, when are your 'superiors' going to let me take back my original form?" I asked him condescendingly.

"Sherlock, I've already told you that I do _in fact_ have superiors and that they will decide when you can go back to being female." Mycroft told me.

I sighed and buried my forehead in my hands, then chuckled and straightened myself. "Did you know someone tried to poison me?" I asked, laughing.

Mycroft let out a huge guffaw. "Who? Voldemort?" he asked, still laughing.

My face hardened. "You know we try not to bring up what happened there ever again, especially since _you abandoned me for the ministry_." I chuckled gravelly. "But you're right about one thing: the perpetrator did have magic, and he _is_ likely a parselmouth."

"There are very few known parselmouths left. Are you trying to suggest-"

"That Harry's responsible? Don't be ridiculous. He knows very well about my extreme tolerance to poisons. Sure, parselmouths are rare, but not nearly extinct. In addition, just like Animagi, not all parselmouths are known." I said, crossing my arms.

"Get some rest. You might have a high tolerance to poisons because of your inner 'fire demon', but you still feel the pain when you drink it."

I scoffed. "Like I myself am allergic to something that my inner demon needs to survive."

Mycroft ruffled my curls and left the room for his feet to thump down the steps. Faintly, I heard the door opening, then closing soon after. However, that's not the approximate time Mycroft would take to close a door after leaving a room.

Someone came in, someone who lives in the apartment. Either one of my dear neighbours, Mrs Hudson, or John. After listening closer, the footsteps pattern indicated it was John.

I settled into the cushions on the armchair, and like a child avoiding their mother when she taunted and prodded them to get up in the morning, I pretended to be asleep.

I heard the door leading from the living room into the hallway opening, then closing afterwards. John took of his coat as per usual, then sat down in his own chair. I could hear his thoughts almost too clearly.

'What are you hiding from me, Sherlock?' he seemed to ask me non-verbally over and over in different ways, only to get no response.

He seemed to go over his own memories of me and everything that had anything to do with me, such as my favourite restaurants, the first case we went on together, the way I deduced 'Afghanistan or Iraq', anything he picked up from Cerise, etc.

His memory wasn't half bad.

I snuggled into the cushions in the armchair with a soft sigh.

I don't know how long the one-sided non-verbal communication was, but I eventually retreated to my mind palace and drudged up all the information I could find about anything to occupy me.

Eventually, my eyes snapped open, I jolted off the chair, and decided to compose a song on the violin.

John came walking out of his room around thirty minutes later with a wince on his face each time the music spiked. He was tired and angry at me for waking him up.

"Sherlock," John sighed in exhaustion and anger (mostly exhaustion), "Go to sleep. Please, please go to sleep." John pleaded.

"John, I am a chronic insomniac. I couldn't go to sleep even if I wanted to." I reasoned, then went back to playing the carefully crafted instrument.

"I swear some day I'll burn that blasted thing."

"That'll be the day I start memorising your girlfriend's names." I tossed back.

John stopped in his stride to get back to bed to glare at me. "Sherlock, if you actually did memorise the names of my girlfriends, I would be very scared."

"As you should be, because that would mean I would have to play the guitar instead of the violin." I retorted after John slammed the door to his room, then continued to let melodies flow from me to the instrument into the air.

The music seemed to be visible. Beautiful colours surrounded me and my hair was ruffled. I turned around with the violin still playing to check if the window was open to find it bolted shut. There was no explanation for the colours since I didn't take any drugs or any poison.

Speaking of poison, the poisons from earlier had settled in my stomach. There was the occasional lapse of pain, but it was otherwise fine. I had bandaged the snakebite to hide it from anyone who could possibly see myself without my clothes, such as my flatmate or my landlady. Both would be completely circumstantial and accidental. However, there would likely be more questions if they see the bandages, so I'll have to be careful about that.

I stalked into the kitchen and made myself a cup of tea, chasing those thoughts away.

While the kettle boiled, I continued to compose.

"Strange. It feels like I've heard this before." I muttered to myself, still playing the violin.

It's like there are small lyrics in the back of my head accompanying the music.

 _"I that am lost, oh, who will find me? Deep down below the old beech tree..."_ A small girl's voice sang.

I picked up my phone and texted Mycroft. ''I that am lost, oh, who will find me? Deep down below the old beech tree.' What is this from? -SH'

Mycroft didn't respond.

Strange, though, the song didn't fade. Ever. Always in the back of my mind.

"I that am lost, oh who will find me? Deep down below the old beech tree." I muttered to myself continually under my breath.

"What's that from?" John asked me.

My head snapped up to look at him. "I have absolutely no clue." I informed him, holding my hands and resting them under my chin.

"Then how do you know it? I know you don't come up with lyrics for your songs."

"It's been floating around my head since composing that song." I told him. "And no, thank you, but I don't need a psychiatrist." I bolted off my seat, phone in hand, then retrieved my jacket and went out the door. "Come, John, there's a new case! Leslie wants us to meet him at Scotland yard!"

John chuckled at 'Leslie', then retrieved his coat and followed me.

* * *

Lestrade met us outside the yellow and black-striped police tape. I adjusted the black fabric of my coat collar.

"What do we have?" I asked Leslie, taking long strides, making John struggle to keep up with me.

"Ruptured gas main. Problem is, though, that there are bodies in the boiler room."

I scoffed. "You've got to be kidding me. Scotland Yard has reached a new low, which I didn't think was possible. Can you truly not solve a simple mystery like this before running to me?" I asked.

Lestrade's facial expression didn't change. Instead, he took my wrist and brought me down to the boiler room.

The boiler was completely destroyed. All that remained was a pile of twisted metal over a skeleton.

A man, in his early forties. Obese. Came from Russia.

"I don't see what's so important about this." I told Lestrade, crossing my arms with a huff.

Lestrade pointed to the corner. A bomb.

"Really, I expected you to notice this." Lestrade told me.

"If you must know, someone poisoned me. The bomb _would_ be enough to rupture the gas lines. Then again, any explosive would." I dropped to my knees, which made everyone spring into action or tense. Instead of slouching over in pain as they expected, I ran a gloved finger across the ground. My tongue snaked out of my mouth to connect with the same gloved finger I had just wiped the floor with. "Gasoline. The fuel line ruptured before the bomb went off, or the dead man brought a container of gasoline, which would explain the melted plastic over in that corner." I pointed to the white smoking puddle in the corner. "The bomb then ignited and lit the room aflame." I dumbed down.

A knock to the door brought all of our attention to a redhead with black glasses.

'Shortsighted. New tattoo. Armed with a knife - homemade. On her menstrual cycle.' My mind raced through the information.

"Phone for Mr Sherlock Holmes." the redhead declared.

'Her name is Lucy Robyn.'

I walked over to the woman, taking the smartphone from her as I walked towards the hallway. "My thanks, Lucille." I put the phone up to my ear when I was in the hallway. "Sherlock." I introduced myself, taking deep strides down the hallway to another distant room that had already been searched.

"There will be a phone in a pink case. Instructions will be given." was all that was said on the other side before the connections was dropped. When I brought the phone back down to call the number back, the previous number had already been erased.

 **A week, seven cases, eight bombs, the acquiring of secret missile plans, and one arrangement with Moriarty later**

I stepped out from behind the double-doors leading to a poll glittering in the moonlight. I took the flash drive out of my pocket with wariness, appreciating the feel of the gun on the other side of my chest. I held up the flash drive containing the missile plans. "I've got the missile plans!" I declared, still holding up the flash drive for anyone who came in to see. "See, that's what this has all been about, isn't it? The final problem."

I heard a door opening behind me "Evening." A familiar voice greeted and I froze from shock, then whipped my head around to confirm my suspicions. I froze when they turned out to be correct. I turned to see John coming out dressed in a winter jacket (Not unreasonable considering it's the middle of January). "John? Wha..."

John said evenly, his hands still in his pockets. "This is a turn-up, isn't it, Sherlock? I'll bet you didn't expect this."

I fought the urge to stutter. I know it's going to make me look like a goddamn fool. Instead, with a look of complete and utter shock written all over my features, I advanced one step, then another, then another.

John pulled at the zipper of the jacket, revealing wires and circuitry. I froze when he pulled apart the two flaps of fabric, revealing a bomb. It had no timer. Remote-control. However, this person wouldn't dare risk being caught with the release code for a bomb on the day a bomb goes off. Pressure-activated.

I nearly dropped the hard drive when a small red dot indicating that he was tagged by a bomb graced his chest. John sighed and gritted out through clenched teeth: "What... Would you like for me... To have him... Say next?"

I turned around and saw the man on the roof with the gun. "Gottle o' gear," John declared, drawing my attention back to him. My head snapped around, looking for Moriarty. I know he's not the sharpshooter, he's far too careful for that. "Gottle o' gear, Gottle o' gear."

"Where are you?" I asked Moriarty.

Another door opened on my other side. My head snapped around and my magic felt around and sensed another presence entering the room.

"I gave you my number." A sing-song-y voice declared. My blood ran cold. Jim from IT. The man Molly is dating. I pity Molly. "I thought you might call." A head peeked out from the other side to reveal Jim. He stepped out in the luxurious suit and stepped along the side of the pool towards us, only slightly away from the door, though. He's facing me. John won't dare turn around.

"Is that," Moriarty continued, "A British army brand-name L9A1 in your pocket," I slowly pulled the gun from my pocket as he continued. "Or are you just pleased to see me?"

I pointed the gun at him. "Both."

"Jim Moriarty." The man introduced himself. "Hi." He continued to step closer to me. "Jim?" he asked rhetorically. "Jim from IT at the hospital?"

I set my other hand underneath the gun's edge where the bullets were stored to steady the gun as my hand shook. "Oh," he wondered. "Did I really make such a fleeting impression? But then I suppose that was rather the point."

He's now standing parallel to me.

I looked at John, then back at him. "I don't like getting my hands dirty." Moriarty explained simply. "I've given you a glimpse, Sherlock, just a teeny-tiny glimpse of what I've got going on out there in the big bad world. I'm a specialist, you see." his eyes darted down to the ground before looking back up at me again. "Like you." he explained, and suddenly everything became clear to me.

"'Dear Jim, please will you fix it for me to get rid of my lover's nasty sister? Dear Jim, please will you fix it for me to disappear to South America?"

"Just so." Moriarty declared in a mock British accent.

He was a- "Consulting criminal." I acknowledged. "Brilliant."

"Isn't it?" Moriarty responded rhetorically. "No one ever gets to _me_ , and no one ever will."

I loaded the gun. "I did."

"You've come the closest," he granted, "but now you're in my way."

"Thank you."

"I didn't mean it as a compliment."

"Yes, you did." I responded. It was clear because of his eyebrows.

"Yeah, okay, I did." Moriarty shrugged. "But, the flirting's over, Sherlock. " _Daddy's had enough now~_. I've cut loose all those people, all those little problems, even thirty million quid, just for you to come out and play, so take this as a friendly warning, my dear. Back off." Moriarty got closer still. I fought to keep my breathing even. "Although," he continued, "I have loved this. This little game of ours. Playing Jim from IT, playing gay. Did you like the trick with the underwear?"

"People have died." I declared remorselessly. My arms shook, though noticeably.

"That's what people DO!" Jim exclaimed. That statement sent shivers up my spine. His words echoed around the pool's walls.

"I will stop you." I promised the consulting criminal.

"No, you won't." Jim replied, shaking his head.

I turned to John. "Are you alright?"

Moriarty leaned over John's ears and spoke in a low, seductive voice. It made me jealous of both men. "You can talk, Johnny-boy. Go ahead."

Nope, all infatuation for Moriarty just fizzled out.

John nodded at me. I turned my attention back to Moriarty, holding out the flash drive. "Take it."

Moriarty's face lit up like a child seeing their Christmas presents. "Oh. The missile plans." He took the small black flash drive, looked it over, then tossed it into the pool, claiming they were boring and he could have gotten them anywhere.

* * *

'Staying Alive' played over the speakers of a phone. I looked around to try and find the source of the music, but all I could turn up with was Moriarty or a phone inside the jacket, judging by the direction.

Then again, echoes can be tricky.

Moriarty sighed, exasperated, the took out his phone. He spoke on it for a few seconds before:

"SAY THAT AGAIN!" Jim exclaimed, then calmed. "Say that again and know that if you're lying to me I will find you and I will skiiiiiiiin you."

After about thirty more seconds, he left the pool area, declaring to the person that if they were speaking falsehoods he would turn them into shoes.

Better offer, then. Not our day to die.

In any case, we owe that person our lives.

Whelp, back to solving cases that likely shouldn't need my attention because Scotland Yard is supposed to be at least moderately intelligent.

Ha ha ha. Regular people are goldfish.

 **Has not been proofread. Please leave a review.**


	5. Notification

**Dear readers,**

 **I no longer have interest in this story, so it is going on permanent hiatus. If you want to adopt it, PM me.**

 **Good (time of day),**

 **-Author.**


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